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I have been trying for more hours than I'd care to admit to get a bootable UFD (USB Flash Drive) with Windows PE on it. There are loads of tutorials, all of which I've been trying in succession, but it seems no matter what I do this stick will just not boot.

I've got the Windows AIK (Automated Installation Kit) installed on my server because that has the source files for Windows PE. First I tried following the instructions inside the WAIK User's Guide, under the article titled "Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD." Those instructions are quite similar to every other set of instructions I've been finding on the web, in that they have you:

  1. Run CopyPE.exe to put the Windows PE environment files into a new directory
  2. Copy a boot.wim file to the sources folder of that new directory
  3. Use diskpart.exe to clean the UFD, create a primary partition, and format it as FAT32
  4. Use xcopy /e to copy the files to the UFD

Well... this didn't work. When I edit the UEFI configuration on my Dell tablet (what I'm trying to boot on), I see my flash drive as a boot option, so I changed the order to say it should be #1, but that didn't work. I tried turning off Secure Boot; that didn't work either.

Onto the next tutorial. The next guide starts out the same with steps #1 and #2 above, but then recommends creating an ISO file and using a 3rd party utility called Rufus to flash that ISO onto the USB stick.

I used this command in order to create the ISO (in this example I put my PE environment in C:\Winpe):

oscdimg -m -o -u2 -udfver102 -bootdata:2#p0,e,betfsboot.com#pEF,e,befisys.bin C:\Winpe\ISO C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\winpeuefi.iso

Then I tried to flash it using the Rufus utility. Rufus lets you select among the following three Partition schemes:

  1. MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI
  2. MBR partition scheme for UEFI
  3. GPT partition scheme for UEFI

And the tutorial I was following said explicitly that you need to use GPT. However, when I first tried this Rufus wouldn't let me, citing this error message:

When using UEFI Target Type, only EFI bootable ISO images are supported. Please select an EFI bootable ISO or set the Target Type to BIOS.

So I tried using MBR instead; again my Dell tablet would not boot the flash drive. So I proceeded to do what any frustrated and stubborn programmer would do: I downloaded the source code to Rufus and searched across all files for that error message, in order to figure out what would trigger it. It turns out that error message is triggered whenever you're missing a file called bootmgr.efi from the root of the ISO. So I searched my Program Files folder and found one, copied that in and re-made the ISO.

This time Rufus worked... it let me burn the ISO with the GPT partition scheme; however it still wouldn't boot on my tablet. Once again, I can see my USB drive as one of the boot options, I have been changing the boot order to ensure it's the first choice, and I have tried it with Secure Boot both on and off. But each and every time it bypasses the UFD completely. I am about ready to tear my hair out; this really shouldn't be so hard.

How do I make a UFD with Windows PE on it that I can boot on my Dell tablet?

soapergem
  • 1,828

2 Answers2

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Macrium Reflect Free is an imaging utility that also includes an option to create a UEFI boot disk or USB with WinPE 3.5, 4.0 or 5.0. It downloads all required files from MS and creates the boot media. Just got to the menu Other Tasks | Create Rescue Media and follow the directions.

Though installing Reflect just for the boot disk might not be the most efficient route, I use it for regular backup images (which can be restored after booting from the boot device).

DrMoishe Pippik
  • 37,887
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So I eventually figured out the specific source of my troubles in this case, though not necessarily a solution to them. It turns out that the particular tablets I was trying to boot into are very unusual. They're Dell Venue tablets based on the Intel "Baytrail" platform. This means they have 32-bit UEFIs, 32-bit operating systems, and 64-bit processors.

I found a very comprehensive article on UEFI and below in the comments the article's author described this particular line of hardware as "oddballs." For all intents and purposes, it looks like I need to make the UFDs bootable with 32-bit UEFI images which are not at all common.

At this point I've just kind of given up on what I was trying to do but I was at least satisfied with that article for pinpointing why I was running into so much trouble.

soapergem
  • 1,828